Prepaid or Postpaid: Which is better in India ?

Last updated on: December 19, 2016

Reliance JIO brought a revolution to the telecom industry this year by introducing free unlimited voice calls. In a single move, Reliance narrowed the difference between prepaid and postpaid plans. RJIO lets users make free calls to all networks with the Voice over LTE technology.

Since five to six months, people have become skeptical about subscribing to a prepaid or postpaid plan. In case you’re wondering which SIM card or plan you should buy, go through the below points to learn the benefits and differences between prepaid and postpaid packs.

Benefits of prepaid plans

You’re in safe zone: Telecom companies in India change plans and their tariffs often. The pack you have bought this month may not be valid in January.

You have to dial the USSD codes for your operator to learn about the new tariffs and find a better deal. Once your current pack expires, you can easily subscribe to a new and better one.

Unlimited voice calls for the month on a single recharge: Other operators have begun to offer free voice calling services to make sure that none of their customers port their numbers to RJIO.

Reliance Communication was one of the first firms to come up with unlimited voice calling plan. Unlike RJIO, you don’t have to upgrade from 3G to a 4G phone. Once you recharge the phone with Rs 149 RCOM pack, you can enjoy unlimited local calls.

Last week, the Government owned telecom firm BSNL launched the Rs 99 and 149 unlimited calling plan for all its circles. Along with free calls, the new pack offers 300 MB of free data.

Vodafone had launched the Rs 144 unlimited calling pack which enables users to make unlimited calls to other Vodafone user for a month.

Don’t have to spend a penny unless you want to make calls: If you’re a prepaid user, you don’t have to recharge your number unless you want to place outgoing calls, use the internet, want to receive calls when you’re not in the home network, etc.

Benefits of Postpaid plans

Pay once in a month: If you have subscribed to a prepaid plan, you must recharge your number every time the balance gets exhausted.

In the case of a postpaid plan, the only thing you have to worry about is usage. Once you buy a postpaid pack, you don’t have to recharge your cell phone number in 4 weeks or up to 30 days (till the validity of the plan).

Ideal for business use: Postpaid plans are suitable for people who have to make plenty of outgoing calls every day. Once you have signed up for a postpaid pack, you can make as many calls as you want. The telecom firm will dispatch a bill which includes the details of your calls and charges incurred for the same. You have to pay the due bill to continue using the services.

Cheap data charges after the FUP: Most operators charge 3 paise per KB of data used by a prepaid user. The operators charge just 1 paise for every kilobyte of consumed used by a postpaid user.

Prepaid and Postpaid plan comparison

India’s top telecom operators provide a variety of prepaid and postpaid plans. To get full details on them, please visit official Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Reliance, Tata Docomo websites.

Conclusion: As you can see above, both prepaid or postpaid plans have their pros and cons. The best way to pick a plan is to figure out your requirements. If you’re a heavy data user, the prepaid plans are great for you. If you make a large number of calls every day, buy a postpaid pack or recharge your number with an unlimited calling pack.